The handheld consumer electronic market continues to grow at an extra-ordinary pace, and more of these products provide increasing interconnectivity with other electronic devices. By way of example, electronic products such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), media players, CD players, DVD players, televisions, game players, digital cameras and the like invariably include connectors for making connection to other electronic devices via cables. The different types of connectors may include electrical contacts to carry various types of signals such as digital or analog audio and/or video signals, USB, Firewire, etc.
Examples of media devices with a highly versatile connector system are the iPod and the iPhone manufactured by Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif. These media devices may communicate with their accessories and other peripheral devices through one or more cable apparatus. For example, the media devices can send audio signals to a speaker, and/or send video signals to a computer display or television. In order to transmit various kinds of signals, different types of cables may be used. Different cables may have different performance characteristics and may be designed to operate with different communication protocols. Such information often needs to be efficiently communicated to the media devices. Hence it is highly desirable to improve electronic cabling techniques for media devices.